The present invention is concerned with a stacking container of the type typically employed in the delivery and handling of bakery products. Many examples of such containers are found in the prior art. The containers are so designed as to enable one container to be stably stacked on the top of a like container while maintaining an adequate clearance so that bakery products in the lower container are not crushed by the stacked container.
Typically, provisions are made for stacking containers at two or more levels relative to the underlying container so that stack height can be minimized where some of the containers container products, such as cupcakes, whose height is not as great as products, such as loaves of bread, contained in other containers. It is also known in this art to employed so-called open-front containers in which the product in any container in the stack can be identified from the front of the stack since at least a portion of the product is visible through the open front. It is also known in the art to provide such open-front containers with removable trays which can be withdrawn through the open front of the container to afford access to products in the container without unstacking the overlying containers.
This latter arrangement is particularly convenient for delivery men in restocking supermarket shelves. The delivery man assembles upon a cart a stack of containers holding the desired selection of products and by drawing out or removing the trays is able to restock the store shelves with a variety of products while the containers themselves remain in the originally assembled stack. Unless during withdrawing and replacement of the tray a reasonable degree of care is taken, the tray may bind or hang up with its container, and thus in containers of this type it is essential that the stacked containers be interlocked with each other in a manner such that relative horizontal movement between the stacked containers, particularly, in the front/rear direction, be minimized in order to maintain stability of the stack. In that stacking of the containers, particularly in low-stack relationship to each other, typically involves a sliding movement of the upper container rearwardly relative to the underlying container, the provision of an arrangement for interlocking the containers against front-to-rear relative movement which also accommodates a smooth-sliding movement to the stacked position as well as disengagement upon unstacking presents a problem.
The present invention is directed to a solution of that problem.